Category: humor

humor, leadership, life lessons, management, motivation, work life

B-B-B-Bad To The Bone

mimijk

There’s something to be said for being bad – and there are many who have become quite successful for their complete lack of ability (presuming of course that one is represented by some tremendous PR people).  The examples come quickly to mind – any Kardashian, reality tv (I’m sorry, I know many of you love it – I just think watching people reduced to tears because of their appearance, love life, swapped spouse or horrific fashion sense is just not, well…good), shock jocks, Paris Hilton, etc.. I get it – there’s a lot to be gained by being talentless – fame, money, one’s own personal posse, Louis Vuitton doggie carriers, an interview with Dr. Phil…

So I’m here to help in the only way I can – I can provide you with some very clear guidance on being a lousy, really bad boss (without violating any federal or state labor laws).  Please, please – no need to thank me.  If this is what you’ve been searching for all along, I share your surprise at the dearth of information than can help you be a terrible supervisor.  Perhaps some of this has been obvious to you all along, yet with all the emphasis on self-improvement, professional development, challenging one’s self to embrace excellence, I can see how the simple steps one needs to take to reach farther down can get lost in all of this positive, ‘you-can-do-it’ energy.  Sit back and relax dear friends – let me offer some basic actions that you can apply today in your quest to hit new lows in lousy leadership.  I promise – you too can make your company’s “Worst Supervisors” list and begin your descent into infamy.

– Don’t give a hoot about the people for whom you have responsibility.  This can be done in any number of ways – ratchet back your feedback to the barely relevant;  assure you’ll get back to someone asap and don’t do it; provide conflicting information about a project’s requirements.

– Say ‘no’ as often as possible.  Leave any affirmative responses for times when you are under untenable duress and see no other alternatives.

– Gossip as much as you can – ideally about people within your department.  If you can manage to engage in these conversations with others on your team, all the better.

– Complain – a lot.  Don’t feel that it is your responsibility to make the workplace a collegial, energized, collaborative environment.  Put that on someone else and then find fault in whatever efforts s/he makes.

– Own as little of your job as possible, and demand that your people take full ownership of theirs.

– Play favorites if you can, though I caution you that you may begin a slippery slide down the path of discriminatory practice.  I’m not looking to help you become a defendant here.

– Take everything personally and react as defensively as possible.  After all, isn’t it all about you?

– Keep your people in tall, separate silos – the less they know what is going on around them, the better.

– Try to understand as little as possible about what your people are doing – there’s nothing more demoralizing than having a boss who has no clue what the hell you do everyday.

– Maintain an opaque quality to your communications.  God knows what could happen if you sought the maximum amount of transparency – people may get ideas, offer their thoughts about a given objective, feel part of a bigger whole, etc.  Ix-nay on the communication, ok?

– Don’t commit to doing what you assure people you’re going to do.

– Keep your door closed, don’t walk around and whatever you do – try not to smile – even to those who may acknowledge you warmly.  The good news is that if you keep doing these things, you will quickly not have to concern yourself with anyone greeting you at all.

– And finally, I would tell people that all that matters is results, though I wouldn’t disclose what those measures are.

See?  I told you this wouldn’t be tough.  I am confident that if you follow these simple guidelines, you too can be really bad at what you do.  Of course, if you are one of those people who responds to reverse psychology, I apologize in advance.  You may end up responding in the exact opposite manner than that which is outlined above – and we all know where that gets you.  You’ll become one of those people who is driven by the challenge of making a positive difference in your day and the days of the people with whom you work – ugh!.

humor, leadership, management, motivation, work life

The Wizard And I

mimijk

“The Wizard Of Oz” – not to be confused with The Wizard Of Menlo Park of course.  After all, one was a movie musical with a series of limited but determine characters in not-so-subtle costuming, the other referenced Thomas Edison, thought by many to be one of the greatest Americans of all time.  Given that scores and scores of books have been written about Edison, I think it is my duty to address the brilliant management and leadership lessons that one can learn from following a yellow brick road.

1 – There’s something to be said for being ‘the man behind the curtain’.  The strongest leaders do not need to advertise their power, rather they advertise the talents of those around them.

2 – Mentors typically don’t make themselves known by descending from the sky in a transparent globe, holding a wand and wearing a crown.  But they’re out there.  Mentors can be people within your organization who have successfully navigated its twisty, winding paths, know where the flying monkeys lurk, who have the magnetism and talent that people gravitate towards and/or have the technical expertise from which you can learn.  They also may not be looking for you, so it would behoove you to seek them out.  And parenthetically, it’s probably better if they don’t sing soprano with an insufferable vibrato.


3 – Some days you’re the house, other days the house falls on you.  Either way, neither state is forever (unless you happen to be a wicked witch – and if you are, there’s probably better reading for you out there).

4 – The best teams are comprised of people with markedly different talents.  It’s best not to duplicate areas of expertise, rather seek those who’s abilities will be complementary.  Chances of effective project completion are highly increased, everyone emerges stronger and more well-versed than when they began and you can maintain a shared vision of the goal without introducing individual competitiveness.

5 – It’s good to carry a bottle of water around with you at all times.  At the least, you’ll stay hydrated.

6 – The easiest way to achieve insurrection is encouraging people to follow you by dicta rather than by choice.  Rest assured that your people will leave your side at the earliest opportunity if their contributions aren’t valued, their input ignored and their chances for professional exploration limited to a narrow, controlled orbit.

7 – Help your  people realize their professional goals.  Not only is it your job, it will enhance the talent stream, engender loyalty and infuse the work place with energy.

8 – Courage means different things to different people, but supporting your people as they break out of their comfort zones is an enriching experience for you and a thrilling new beginning for them.

9 – Show your heart – it only makes you appear stronger, more authentic and relatable.  It will not diminish your authority at all.

10 – Work and home are inter-connected.  They don’t exist in separate silos.  It is impossible to separate the two when there are issues or concerns involving one or the other.  It is far better to recognize this and determine the best way to reconcile the two rather than having them at war within you.

And finally, if you really feel you need to, invest in a pair of ruby slippers.  They aren’t going to help you get anywhere, but they should appreciate greatly over time.

humor, leadership, management, motivation, Uncategorized, work life

Back To Basics – Part 2

mimijk

I feel a little vindicated.  An article in Forbes recently appeared that dealt with the overabundance of email and its impact on the development of quality professional relationships.  The author offered a solution you may have already read on this site – the idea of having a ‘no email’ day – invoking a day where people have the choice of getting up and talking with each other or at the least getting on the phone.  Please don’t burst my happy little bubble by delicately suggesting that this is hardly a new idea.  I know – but it sure felt good to see it in a more legitimate, well read format.  As my babelicious nephew would say – “True dat, Mimi”.

So I’m intrepidly going out on a limb, despite my fear of heights, and offering some other basic principles which I think could bring your employees greater professional satisfaction, enhance the quality of your leadership and perhaps, just perhaps improve your results.  At the least it may give you something to think about.  And as always, if it can provoke a smile, all the better.

1 – You can never learn anything while you’re talking.

2 –  You can have a happily-ever-after work experience – especially if you look at is day by day.

3 – Presenting yourself as one who knows it all, doesn’t inspire confidence or make you a great boss.  It makes you insufferable and impossible to work for (or live with for that matter).

4 – Try congratulating the person who owns up to making a mistake.  I’m serious – I used to do it all the time.  To me it was reflective of the individual’s willingness to take responsibility for the work under his/her jurisdiction and greatly increased the likelihood that such an error wouldn’t occur again.  What I never did was let them take the fall in public – I took the hit.  When all was said and done, I’d ask the employee what the ‘takeaway’ was and was never disappointed by the thoughtfulness of the response.

5 – If you’re going to take professional risks – and we all should – put your faith in those with whom you work.  Let them know that you’re willing to back them and show your trust in them in deed.

6 – I used to have regular meetings with my team.  Twice a year though we engaged in an exercise called “Building BHAGs (big, hairy, ambitious goals).  The rules were few – the goals had to be a little scary, strategically important for the firm, and require that they be achieved collaboratively.  Timelines were established with the knowledge that they could be somewhat fluid and each person tracked their contributions on a SharePoint site.  Eventually they asked me not to come to the first meetings because they wanted to do it themselves, showing me their final recommendations.  They were amazing.  In other words – you don’t have to put your mark on every piece of paper, idea and/or project.  If you’ve developed your people well, give them every chance to shine.

7 – “I’m sorry” are two of the most under-utilized words in the workplace.

8 – “Any new venture goes through the following stages:  enthusiasm, complication, disillusionment, search for the guilty, punishment of the innocent and decoration of those who did nothing – Anon”.  If you are in a position of responsibility, you can change this outcome with a modicum of effort and close attention to the rhythm of the work that is being done, the tenor of the conversations that are taking place and the quality of the activities that will drive the result.  Oh yeah – that’s your job too.

9 – Always, always hire people who are smarter than you and then give them the substantive work that will make them thrive.  It may seem counter-intuitive, but I promise you will not be hiring yourself out of a job – rather making room for you to take on more signficant projects of your own.

10 – Mike Ditka was right – failure isn’t fatal.  The corollary of course is that success doesn’t last forever either.  Learn to accept the ebb and flow of the realities of work.

Finally, think about your professional legacy.  Do you want to be known for something other than showing up?  I’m convinced most of you do. Identify the values and leadership style for which you will want to be associated even when you have moved on to new adventures.  Try one thing differently every week – big or small – and see if there is more you can do to ensure you will be remembered in a way that will satisfy and please you.  And Happy St. Patrick’s Day everyone – may each day hold at least one four leaf clover for you.

humor, leadership, life lessons, management, mindfulness, motivation, work life

Goal Setting – A Creative Approach

mimijk

After majoring in partying during my first two years of college, I got serious and then decided to double major.  Psychology and Education.  Did I envision being a Chief HR Officer?  Absolutely not.  My path to this profession was remarkably serendipitous (at least in my mind) and as it unfolded seemed to occur with what I perceived as very little input on my part.  Stuff just seemed to happen.  I realize now that this perception was inaccurate and skewed.  It allowed me to react with predictable self-deprecating dismissiveness at my successes, and passionate self-flagellation when absorbing my failures (in case you haven’t noticed, I’ve always had a flair for high drama – I’m particularly good at self-flagellation).  The truth of the matter is that I’ve always had goals.  Yes they were fluid, without question the path to their achievement was often more circuitous than direct and at times these goals were downright misguided.  But as my hopes for the future crystallized, the navigation of my ‘goal map’ became easier to read  – even when I was heading directly off course (have I also mentioned that geography was never my strong suit).

Just as advertisers use story boards when constructing a client pitch, I am a strong believer in using story boards to help determine what our goals are and how they may be achieved.  Think of the success of PinInterest.  Basically, you are ‘pinning’ and ‘repinning’ pictures that resonate with you on a visceral level – be they of places, nature, humor, etc..  Not only does it feel good to look at the compendium of your personal favorites, it’s self-reinforcing.  So…you pin some more – and if you look at your collection closely, you will see certain patterns.  In effect, it becomes a story board about you.  I used to encourage people to build story boards at work when training on the topic of goal setting (Creativity in a law firm?  A bit oxymoronic I suppose).

Try it – cut out pictures that inspire you, print off quotes or thoughts that excite you and tape them onto a piece of oak tag (if that sounds too dated, just stick ’em up on a bulletin board).  See what messages you glean from what may seem like a random display.  Don’t be discomfited by the pieces that don’t seem to fit – if it was all perfect, it wouldn’t be self-reflective.  What you will find though is that there is a pattern in that collage of yours.  And it can help define what it is you want  – in your professional and/or personal life (depending on what your story board is focused on of course).  One quote that appears on my current board, first appeared on the board I created when I left the firm.  Kofi Annan once said, “To live is to choose.  But to choose well, you must know who you are and what you stand for, where you want to go and why you want to go there.”  It fuels my pictorial narrative.

Once you get a sense of what it is you want and need to do – take a deep breath, have a glass of wine, revel for a moment in the clarity you have found.  Then communicate your thoughts – write them down, tell a colleague, share them with your team.  And this is where it gets a little tricky – remember that a goal is only as achievable as the objectives that support its completion.  Objectives are the discreet, actionable steps that are taken to make a goal attainable.  For big picture people this is definitely the harder of the two steps, for it’s where you break it all down into timelines, responsibilities and commitments.  When you write objectives, use verbs that imply movement – there is no room for the passive voice in the world of achieving goals!  I realize that this is no easy challenge I’m throwing out into cyberspace, but I believe that you can take your dreams, your unspoken hopes and turn them into concrete goals with clear, defined steps.  Perhaps the dreaming part is more romantic; the realization of a dream is more fulfilling and enriching.  And one of the gazillion wonders of life is that we can dream many dreams, understand where our values and life choices intersect and create as many story boards as we want to help chart our path.  And that, is pretty damn terrific

humor, leadership, life lessons, management, Uncategorized, work life

E.T. Management – Part 1

mimijk

There’s a lot to be learned about management from going to the movies.  Much of what I needed to know about the basics of working with people, I learned from “E.T’.  To risk an attenuated blog (for a change), I’ll provide you with the abbreviated version.  We can write each other about it as thoughts come to mind…

1.  It’s the things we don’t know that scare us the most.  Once we face an issue head-on, it typically casts a more comfortable shadow.

2.  Don’t discriminate against anyone just because they’re not like you.  They may be better.

3.  The Platinum Rule trumps the Golden Rule – treat others as they wish to be treated, not necessarily in the way in which you think they want to be treated.

4.  M&Ms can improve a bad day.

5.  People communicate differently.  The first step is to figure out whether or not you understand what someone is trying to tell you and where s/he is coming from (ok, pun intended).

6.  Most of us have a Plan A; it’s essential to have a plan B.

7.  If you can’t get past an obstacle, enlist the help of others and try hitting it head on or jumping right over it.

8.  Love and profit can exist in the same sentence.

9.  If you go too far afield from your authentic self, compromise too many values and distance yourself from what you know is right for you, it’s time to get back to an environment where you thrive.

10. Phone home.

anxiety, humor, life lessons, mindfulness, work life

It’s Your Choice

mimijk

Cash or credit; paper or plastic; wheat or sourdough; grande or venti; bootcut or straight-leg; warm or cool; volume or length; matte or gloss; MSNBC or CNBC…It’s not even 8AM and these are just a few of the decisions I’ve had to make just to get in gear.  And I’m retired now – what was my morning like when I was working?

If this is indicative of the ‘new minimalism’, I don’t get it.  I consider it a paradigm for insanity.  I don’t want to make any more decisions, it’s hurting my brain and making me cranky.  Perhaps this is why I find shopping malls so punitive – just parking is an exercise in over-stimulation.  And once you walk inside (choosing one of a hundred different alternatives for egress) there are too many stores, too many people, too many colors…If I go to Nordstrom, am I an ‘individualist’, ‘savvy’, ‘tbd’, ‘petite’?  Do I want firm control or moderate control?  Anklets or tube socks?  Yes.

This is my response going forward.  Yes.  Do with it what you will, but it seems far better to me than just responding negatively to everything and winding up with nothing and never leaving my house.  Yes.  I cede all decision-making authority to the salesperson, grocery store cashier and Starbucks’ barista.  It’s all fine with me.  I just want a cup of coffee, the perfect pair of jeans, a blush that brightens my face so I look naturally healthy and a moisturizer that erases wrinkles.  I want a handbag that holds everything and weighs nothing.  I want to know which is better – counting calories or protein loading.  Are we Lin-ing, Tebow-ing or Winning this week?  Yes.  Just tell me the lexicon-of-the-moment so I can feel like I know what is going on.  It’s fine.  I’m overwhelmed with choices and underwhelmed with the results.  So whatever you choose, it’s fine with me.

No wonder people don’t feel like working once they arrive at the office.  I always thought that the deferral of difficult decisions was a result of a collective abhorrence of provocative dialogue.  Wrong – it’s exhaustion.  It’s easier to have a cabal of ‘yes’ people around.  Ok – it’s exhaustion and ennui, but the latter is a topic for another day.  Of course here we are expending all of this energy just to get to wherever we  need to be, and if one pauses for a moment it’s clear that none of the choices made along the way really matter.  In hindsight, all of these decisions are elevated to a level of importance prompted by the urgency of the moment, not the urgency of the matter.  It’s all a bit embarrassing.  When I consider the offenses I may have caused by being thoughtless, I’m both rueful and redeemed.  I now have an excuse.  I had run out of mental energy.

So I guess this means that when we really need to step up to the plate and connect with the ball, it very well may be a swing and a miss.  I don’t want to miss the next pitch.  From now on it’s ‘yes’ to everything that really isn’t going to matter to me tomorrow.  And in response to the more thought-provoking questions?  I’ll get back to you on that.